MISTI Blogs

Back at it again with the blogs and this time with 3x the hair! 

I’ve been studying at ETH Zurich for the last 7 months from February – August and I have LOVED it; I have met so many incredible, interesting, talented people from all walks of life and learned and applied so much knowledge in my classes. I loved staying at Switzerland, so I extended it from just the spring semester to working over the summer as well, continuing research at Professor Coletti’s lab (thanks for MISTI’s generous funding :)). I hope this convinces people to study abroad while at MIT because I think not enough people do – especially at ETH Zurich! 

Moving to Switzerland + First Impressions: 

Before heading to Switzerland, I was terrified of leaving the safety of my MIT community. As a second semester Junior, I had created a very steady comfort zone – I had a strong routine of hanging out with the same people that I love in the same places that I love, which is now going to be completely flipped over. There were a lot of worries running through my head: What if I didn’t make friends? What if I felt lonely all semester? Once at ETH I was met with a pleasant reality: every single other exchange student was looking to make friends so it was pretty easy to find really lovely people! 

For the Spring semester until the end of June, I lived in Sonneggstrasse 17 which has been the most lovely time. It’s 24 people in a 4-story flat (6 rooms per floor) with a common lounge and kitchen on the ground floor (which I spend about 50% of my waking hours in). There are 12 exchange students and 12 master’s students in the house; people come from all over the world: Italy, Russia, Singapore, China, the United States, Bulgaria, Romania, India, South Korea, Cyprus, and Catalonia. Generally, there is no social boundary between bachelor’s and master’s students (even PhDs sometimes). We’re all just buddies. We’ve all become very close – we do a lot of yapping, board/card-gameing, chocolate-eating, grass-sitting, lake-swimming, movie-nighting; it’s a very cozy and homey space. It’s the closest possible flat to ETH (kinda like Maseeh), so that was incredibly convenient as well.

I was at ETH 2 weeks before the semester started to attend a German intensive course, which taught us basic words and grammar. I highly recommend taking it for several reasons: a) learning a bit of German is critical – it’s a great stepping stone to gaining more German knowledge throughout the 7 months there b) Almost all the exchange students not based out of Europe take this class, so it introduced me to many of my first friends. It was a fantastic course, and I kept in touch with most of the friends I made during the class 🙂 

As I met new people, I was subconsciously constantly mapping them to people I already knew; it was very unfair since it made me unable to meet the person fully, and it took a while to shake this bad habit. Once I got over this, I enjoyed having the dedicated time in the first two weeks to really get to know the people around me. It reminded me of the importance of forming close relationships and community.

Something weird I’ve noticed, though, is that the version of diversity here does not come with the diversity of skin tone. People are from many different countries, each with their history, language, and culture, but most are within Europe. I realized America is unique – most people’s family lines are from all over the world, but we’re all associated with one country. It really is a melting pot of so many cultures. It was quite hard to get used to not having delicious Latin American and East Asian food prevalent in Switzerland. As a side note, for the first couple of days while back in the US, I got surprised every time someone didn’t have an accent. 

Classes

Overview of my classes: Biofluids, Seismic Waves, Physical Oceanography, Auditory Acoustics (essentially how your ear works), Metal Additive Manufacturing, Carbon Capture, and a research project for credit. (24 ETCS, ~50 MIT Units)

Starting classes were pretty overwhelming – there were a lot of new people and a different class structure that I had to get used to. Once classes started, though, I realized that because MIT covers theory so thoroughly, I had a large platform to build upon. I felt well-equipped, even while taking graduate-level courses, and professors were very approachable when I was inevitably a bit confused haha. Though I had seen all the equations before, my ETH classes emphasized understanding the theory from an intuitive level. For example, I had seen and done Fourier transforms, but I finally really understood them in the Seismic Waves class.

The variety of classes I was able to take is something I treasured about my study abroad experience – they all built upon my existing Mechanical Engineering knowledge in very interesting ways. Learning about the movement of the ocean currents, how seismic waves are affected by the structure of the earth, how the inner ear works, for example, rejuvenated me and got me thinking about the applications of all of the theory I was learning at MIT. It also made me realize that I really love studying in breadth, something that convinced me that I want to continue being a student and pursue a Masters degree. 

I realized I deeply enjoy studying biofluids and environmental science; they’re both the perfect combination of pure mechanical engineering theory and applications that affects human and animal lives. If I had not studied at ETH I would never have known, and now I am applying to do a master’s in these subjects! 

Because I am taking less units that I typically do at MIT, it allowed me the space and time to dive into the subjects more thoroughly. Anything I find interesting I read about, and even have tried to recreate some of the experiments mentioned in the literature. It also has given me more time to dive into the research project. 

Research work at ETH

I conducted a research project in Professor Filippo Coletti’s Experimental Fluid Dynamics group, studying rain and its collision rates. It is a lovely intersection between environmental science, mechanical engineering, and math, and it has actually turned into my Bachelor’s thesis! I was expecting to go into this project sort of like a UROP – spend a couple of hours each week and focus mainly on learning. At the beginning of the semester, Professor Coletti said “I believe you will find the project interesting, and this will naturally lead you to devote to it the needed time”, and that is exactly what happened. I would often spend 40+ hours on this project tracking the particles, developing algorithms to search for collisions, referencing theory, and having wonderful chats with my supervisor. My supervisor, Alessandro Gambino, has helped me immensely throughout the project; whenever I have questions he is quick to answer them and give me references to learn more. Alessandro gives me direction with the lee-way to focus on things I find most interesting and shape the project. I could not have asked for a better, more knowledgeable, and kind supervisor 🙂

Watch the particles we are tracking for collisions on Instagram (link when posted).

I am continuing to do this research project over the summer, and into the fall semester. We just retook data in August with much cleaner runs and I am excited to start processing and finding collisions! 

Exams

Classes choose between offering the exam at the end of the semester (end of May) or during the “session” period which is in August. I moved a couple of mine forward,  so I ended up having three in May, one exam in June, July, and August(0_o). Typically, the exam is worth 100% of your grade, and they do not take into account your pset grades, so you study like mad. In my experience at MIT, your grades are reflective of the effort and work you put into the class, more so than your mastery of the content. Typically, these are correlated, but sometimes they are not.  I would say generally I don’t understand things very easily – I always need to stay after class and ask a hundred questions until it finally sticks. ETH has the philosophy that a student should exhaust all their resources to find answers to their questions before reaching out for help. To their point, I do think I was relying on office hours too much at MIT to answer my psets, however the lack of office hours made it a lot harder to get answers to genuine questions. I ended up getting better at figuring out the answers to smaller misconceptions, but still heavily relied on emailing professors my questions. 

The exams were a bit harder to study for since for many of the classes there were no psets to reference and it was quite stressful. Instead, I relied on going through slides on my own, reading textbooks, and trying to explain the content to my mom. The exams ended up going pretty well, so don’t be as scared as the other ETH tell you to be. 

Swiss culture

Most of my interactions with Swiss people have been through Zurich’s community mixed frisbee team. My favorite thing about Swiss culture is how deeply they care for you – every conversation was in-depth and about aspirations for the future, our pasts, family, and more. I finally understand the idea that Americans have a lot of small talk – we totally do! One of my Norweigen friends said she always is confused when Americans say “how are you?” in passing because she does not have the time to answer the question. This is a mindset I think I have gained as well – I enjoy having full conversations with people now. It’s also quite a bit more tiring, so I have learned I also need to recharge my social battery more frequently. 

Being responsible for my own life and having balance is something I have also appreciated. I’m not quite at the point of having lunch at 11am, but I do enjoy being a bit more organized and keeping my room clean. Also, being on time was a huge thing – coming from an Arab culture 7pm means 7:30 pm on a good day, but people here usually do reverse MIT time and arrive 10 minutes early to class. I’ve actually quite enjoyed arriving early, getting ready for class, and not feeling rushed. For context, I am a chronically late person — I have regularly been hours late to plans (including my own birthday party). 

Side note, the cheese and chocolate have been INCREDIBLE. A huge loss for my taste buds not to have yummy cheese all the time anymore.

Traveling around Europe

The wonderful thing about traveling is that you get to learn so much about the place you visit and the people you go with! Travel is relatively cheap and close by in Europe – it’s very feasible to do a weekend trip to Copenhagen, for example. I visited Geneva, Amsterdam, Munich, Rome, Iceland, Krakow, Warsaw, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Romania, and Zermatt (in order) over the semester and the summer. Most of these trips felt very educational – we spent most of the time learning about the area and its history—it reminded me how much I love learning people’s stories. I’ve been taking a lot of history classes at MIT and I definitely want to continue doing so. 

The one that stuck with me the most is Iceland; it was incredibly raw. It was as if mother nature was trying to create a spectacle of emotion and we got to hike through it. My friend Rudra Raval and I went together – I had never spent more than a couple hours with someone one-on-one, but we get along really well, so it was a splendid time. Because we went during the off-season we were the only ones on some of the hikes, which only elevated the experience of pure nature. 

Hiking around Switzerland during the summer is also a HUGE plus – some really truly gorgeous views!

Takeaways:

There’s so much to the world! And so many incredible people filled with love that I am so happy to be the recipient of. I’ve made some life-long friendships here and I know we will visit each other in the future. It was really tough saying the initial round of goodbyes as people left at the beginning of the summer and I realized how attached I had become to so many people I had not known four or five months ago. I feel blessed to meet people who have given me so many belly laughs, moments of thought, and nourishment. Now that I have left, it does not feel permanent. It was definitely a see you later. 

On an academic note, I am grateful for the variety of classes I was able to take here! Getting an education from some of the world leading environmental scientists has been incredible. I love learning how the world works, which is a huge reason I want to study mechanical engineering. Learning how the Earth and our human body works this semester has been an exciting and welcomed challenge.

I would choose to do a study abroad 100x over (and I hope you do too)!